The others returned in the morning, and I told them of the previous night's events. As soon as I heard the Empty Hand's suggestion, I was eager to repair matters by making haste for the thieves' guild's town. I could not convince the others, however. They feel some attachment to this town and its pitiful mayor that I do not share. This town has little to do with our mission, while the other town houses people who would travel a week's journey in order to assassinate one of us. And if we linger here too long, more assassins will surely come. We must strike them before they strike us, and recover my journal. I can only hope that word of our presence has not spread too far.
At the insistence of the others, I agreed to take on the mayor's mission and we traveled north to the mines. I wish I could have convinced them to leave this town to care for itself, but I have always had difficulty conveying urgency.
We arrived at the mines early in the evening. Ten horses belonging to the ten missing soldiers stood near the large double-doors, which, we soon discovered, were locked. The Infiltrator touched the door, which set off an alarm, notifying those inside of our presence. I suggested we hide, and wait an hour or two, but the others wanted to break in as soon as possible. Without the halfling's skills, we had no recourse but to force the door in, which took enough time to ensure that those inside would be ready for us.
It was perhaps luck alone that presented us with a force we could overpower. When we first entered, we saw nothing. Then arrows flew out at us from the darkness. My newly discovered aptitude for deflecting arrows in flight made me the natural choice for scout, but I found nothing. It did not take long to realize that our enemies were invisible.
Although the battle was difficult, we won without any serious injuries. After we chased them down the elevator shaft, the priest thought to throw silver dust on them, which made them easier to target. As for the three new opponents who approached, two were visible and the third we targeted by sound alone.
With the five drow dead, we searched the mine. I was surprised at its miniscule size, consisting as it did of two halls, and elevator shaft and an office. The mine was extraordinarily rich, veins of mithril clearly visible in the walls, despite the amount of mining that had been done. The office contained the ten bodies of the ten missing soldiers.
I could not accept that five drow were the entire defensive force for such a valuable mine, so we spent the remainder of the day and most of the next searching the area to no avail. If there were more of them, they were sufficiently well-hidden that even the Tracker's trained eye could not find a trace.
We rode back through heavy rain. A mere hour's ride from the town, we heard a low moaning sound in the distance, but the rain obscured the sound so much that we could not tell how far it was or how loud it was at its origin. After some discussion, we decided to investigate. We tracked the sound through savannah tall enough to brush up against our horses' breasts for quite a while before we caught our first glimpse of what was creating the noise. Far in the distance, dozens of heads poked out of the tall grass, moving steadily away from us. The clattering of bone against bone filled the savannah with sound, and a faint odor of death carried even as far as our distant noses.
Uncertain of what we were seeing, we crept up closer to investigate. A few hundred yards away, one of them heard some sound one of us made, and turned, revealing a pair of eyes that glowed red. Far as we were, and as much noise as they were making, those could have been no common ears to notice our soft rustling in the grass. The eyes stopped and stared for only a few seconds before they lost interest, and the hoard continued in its regular pace. The Tracker snuck up closer, and multiple arrows rebounded from his breastplate. Fortunately, he was not injured, and he was able to determine that this was a hoard of living skeletons, no doubt under the command of some necromancer.
I suggested that we follow them to see where they were going. The others thought it not worth our while, since skeletons generally move in a straight line. To find where they were headed, we merely had to look on a map. This did not seem sufficient to me, since their direction did not tell us their destination, but the others were insistent that, rather than follow these creatures, we attack them.
The battle went smoothly and quickly, thanks to the priest's power over undead. There were about three dozen skeletons and a dozen low, shambling creatures. The priest destroyed most of them with his power, I burnt many to ash with a magical fire, and the others finished off the few who remained. The priest informed us that the creatures had been magically enhanced, though that fact did not cause us any additional trouble.
We are now back in the inn, resting for the night. The townspeople were very frightened when we returned, as the creatures we had just destroyed were the bodies that had risen from their own graveyard. As usual, the mayor was waiting for our report. He himself was petrified, unable to respond to the threat that could destroy his town. He asked the priest to lead the town guard in his place, to defend the town against tomorrow's anticipated attack.
This mayor is a fool. He sent two thirds of his poorly trained men to their deaths, and trusted a few strangers with the welfare of all the people under his protection. I said as much to the others, and I believe the Infiltrator thought I intended to depose the man, since his answer was naught but an adamant declaration that “he is the rightful ruler.”